Rip Van Winkle Awakes (2 year nap?)

Well almost two years. Anyway, letting the blog mellow and age like fine rotgut or echinacea tincture. Hey, speaking of that, visit Rechelle's blog, "My Sister's Farmhouse" for a photojournalistic tour de force on echinacea tincturing by yours truly. Thanks. Here's the link:http://mysistersfarmhouse.com/garden/2009/06/27/an-echinacea-tincture-with-hal-sears/comment-page-1/#comment-795

Laura's Blog "The Spectrum"

One of the most entertaining, funny, sad, real, gotcha kind of blog writers I have found is Laura Astoria at her blog http://www.thespectrum.org/blogger.html Wide-eyed in Manhattan as she pursues her acting and musical theatre career, she makes great prose out of a subway ride, a trip to her shrink, a rant on ole boyfriends, or her Catholic roots. She's thoroughly pleasurable to read and her charm and intelligence is palpable. Keep it up, girl!!

First Day of August

Yeah, it's hot. Yeah, it's humid. Yeah, it's August in Kansas. As in "...I'm as corny as ...yada yada." There IS a lotta corn out there, by the way.

So how 'bout a cool, ice-clinky, glass of ice tea, or maybe a gin and tonic, and this lime-cool poem by Neruda:

"In Praise of Ironing"

Poetry is pure white.
It emerges from water covered in drops,
is wrinkled, all in a heap.
It has to be spread out, the skin of this planet,
has to be ironed out, the sea's whiteness;
and the hands keep moving, moving,
the holy surfaces are smoothed out,
and that is how things are accomplished.
Every day, hands are creating the world,
fire is married to steel,
and canvas, linen, and cotton come back
from skirmishings of the laundries,
and out of light a dove is born--
pure innocence returns out of the swirl.

Pablo Neruda, from Plenos Poderes

"Desire itself is movement/ Not in itself desirable;

Love is itself unmoving,/ Only the cause and end of movement,

Timeless, and undesiring/ Except in the aspect of time

Caught in the form of limitation/ Between un-being and being.

Sudden in a shaft of sunlight/ Even while the dust moves

There rises the hidden laughter/ Of children in the foliage

Quick now, here, now, always-- ...

(from Burnt Norton, T. S. Eliot)

Li'l Nipper

Here she is, blew in last week during the gale. Winds so strong it blew bricks out of our neighbor's chimney, blew best-laid plans of woman and man totally out the window--there is a message there, seems like, and hence a messenger. hmmmmm

Here's "No More Sad"

I don’t need
no more sad
life is miraculous
and short—
too full and too empty—
I don’t need
No more sad.

The silhouette of Satan’s face
long-nosed, pensive
in the bright sun’s shadow—
He don’t need
no more sad, neither—
He done made
his bed, in hell,
wherever.

And that grad student
pluggin in her laptop
suckin all her frap up
tappin into coffee house juice--
She don’t need
no more sad
neither.

Her frim-fram latte floats a silhouette—
a crane at sunset?
a dagger drippin blood?
a dead sister’s cigarette?
She don’t need
no more sad, never.

Yellow gleaming fireplug,
mound of snow,
cars passin slow
on main street,
Lunchers walkin fast
to strains of Johnny Cash
in bitin cold—
They don’t need
no more sad, neither.

(St. Anthony, Abbot day, 2007; copyright Hal Sears)

Motherwort

Leonuris cardiaca This was taken in our alley as the sun was setting (f3.2 @ 1/25 sec 400sp). I love how the flowering plant seems to glow despite the lowering light.

Dr. Culpepper (1653) says "There is no better herb to take melancholy vapors from the heart, and to strengthen it... it makes mothers joyful and settles the womb, therefore it is called Motherwort." Since it bloomed in England in late July and early August, and since good doctor Culpepper's 17th c. medical science also encompassed astrological influences, he puts the plant "under Leo" but "Venus owns the herb." Also, he claimed "It grows only in gardens with us in England."

Glad it made its move to Kansas, where it blooms in spring here. A good bitter tonic, particularly for women's issues. But if some of you men need a dose of Venus influence, here's your herb. Dar